Course period
March 2011 - December 2011
The first teaching session will be on Tuesday 8 March 2011 in Alnarp.
Learning objectives
The objective of the course is to provide students a comprehensive advanced-level knowledge of the silviculture of oaks in Europe, focusing mainly on pedunculate and sessile oak. The course emphasizes experience from forestry practice as well as scientific testing of alternative silvicultural practices in a range of oak forest types in different parts of Europe. The course comprises all phases of oak silviculture, including regeneration, tending and harvesting, with a main focus on thinning practices. After completing the course, the student should be able to demonstrate advanced-level knowledge, skills and competence in oak silviculture.
Examination
For the examination the student is required to write an essay on oak relating to a topic within the student's own project. The essay should be submitted to the teacher electronically via e-mail and in pdf-format.
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching will include discussion lectures, supervised and unsupervised exercises, field tours to long-term oak experiments in Sweden and abroad, individual literature studies, and supervision of the student essay. The teaching schedule is flexible and will depend on the students' other courses and project work. Depending on the geographic location of students, parts of the course will be given through distance learning, online supervision and online group discussions. Students are required to participate in scheduled teaching sessions at regular intervals as outlined in the course schedule. Session dates will be scheduled in cooperation with the students.
Course schedule
The course includes four mandatory teaching and discussion sessions and two mandatory field tours. Students are required to participate in all of these.
Session 1
Oak species and oak forest types in Europe, emphasizing pedunculate and sessile oak in managed oak forests
Site requirements
Silvicultural systems
Regeneration practices
Provenances
Session 2
Tree and stand growth
Initial spacing
Pre-commercial thinning
Thinning practices
Understorey practices
Session 3
Crop tree practices
Pruning practices
Wood characteristics
Timber quality
Economy of oak management
Session 4
Production risks: oak health, pests and pathogens
Afforestation with oak
Oak for recreation
Biodiversity in oak forests
Oak in the landscape and in the managed forest
Field tour I
Visit to oak field experiments in Sweden
Field tour II
Visit to oak field experiments in Denmark
Course literature
The course literature will depend on the students' language skills and will be selected from the following list of books and articles. In addition to these, other publications will also be used.
Books
Bary-Lenger, A. & J.-P. Nebout 1993: Les chênes pédonculé et sessile. Perron. 605 pp.
Bary-Lenger, A. & J.-P. Nebout 2002: Culture des chênaies irrégulières dans les forèts et les parcs. Perron. 358 pp.
Ståål, E. 1986: Eken i skogen och landskapet. Södra. 137 + 31 pp.
Articles
Jensen, F.S. & J.P. Skovsgaard 2009: Precommercial thinning of pedunculate oak: Effects of thinning practice on recreational preferences of the population in Denmark. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research 24: 28-36.
Jensen, J.S. 2000: Provenance variation in phenotypic traits in Quercus robur and Quercus petraea in Danish provenance trials. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research 15: 297-308.
Jensen, J.S. & J.K. Hansen 2008: Geographic variation in phenology of Quercus petraea Matt. Liebl.) and Quercus robur L. oak grown in greenhouse. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research 23: 179-188.
Jensen, J.S., A. Gillies, U. Csaikl, R. Munro, S.F. Madsen, H. Roulund, A. Lowe 2002: Chloroplast DNA variation within the Nordic countries. Forest Ecology and Management 156: 167-180.
Petit, R.J., S. Brewer, S. Bordács, K. Burge, R. Cheddadi, E. Coart, J. Cottrell, U.M. Csaikl, B. Dam, J.D. Deans, S. Espinel, S. Fineschi, R. Finkeldey, I. Glaz, P.G. Goicoechea, J.S. Jensen, A.O. König, A.J. Lowe, S.F. Madsen, G. Mátyás, R.C. Munro, F. Popescu, D. Slade, H. Tabbener, S.G.M. de Vries, B. Ziegenhagen, J.-L. de Beaulieu & A. Kremer 2002: Identification of post-glacial colonisation routes of European white oaks based on chloroplast DNA and fossil pollen evidence. Forest Ecology and Management 156: 49-74.
Rune, F. & J.P. Skovsgaard 2007: Afforestation with oak: Effects of pre-commercial thinning on the development of ground flora. TemaNord 508: 203-209.
Additional information
Students are expected to pay for travelling, course literature and other costs through their own project grants. Students are expected to organize purchase and download of course literature themselves. More literate will be nominated at later stage, for example on regeneration, afforestation, growth, thinning, wood characteristics, economy and production risks.